While the flu and the coronavirus are both notoriously unpredictable, there’s a good chance COVID cases will surge again this winter, and troubling signs that the flu could return too.
Rob Stein, NPR NewsHealth officials are predicting this winter could see an active flu season on top of potential COVID surges. In short, it’s a good year to be a respiratory virus. Left: Image of SARS-CoV-2 omicron virus particles replicating within an infected cell . Right: Image of an inactive H3N2 influenza virus.
What happens in the Southern Hemisphere’s winter often foreshadows what’s going to happen north of the equator. “As the community mitigation measures start to roll off around the world and people return to their normal activities, flu has started to circulate around the world,” says Dr. , assistant professor of medicine and allergy and infectious diseases and an adjunct assistant professor of epidemiology at the University of Washington.“We know that schools are really the places where influenza spreads. They’re really considered the drivers of transmission,” Chu says. “They’ll be the spreaders. They will then take it home to the parents. The parents will then take it to the workplace. They’ll take it to the grandparents who are in assisted living, nursing home.
So far it looks like this year’s flu vaccines are a good match with the circulating strains and so should provide effective protection.